Hostess Brands Inc. on Friday sent out letters notifying its more-than 18,000 workers that they could be laid off in the next two months.

The maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread on Friday mailed out WARN Act notices to all of its employees, a Hostess spokeswoman confirmed to Bankruptcy Beat Monday. The federal WARN Act requires companies to give employees 60 days notice before closing a facility or ordering mass layoffs. However, sending the notices doesnt mean a company is definitely going to lay off the recipients.

Hostess Brands Inc. on Friday sent out letters notifying its more-than 18,000 workers that they could be laid off in the next two months.

The maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread on Friday mailed out WARN Act notices to all of its employees, a Hostess spokeswoman confirmed to Bankruptcy Beat Monday. The federal WARN Act requires companies to give employees 60 days notice before closing a facility or ordering mass layoffs. However, sending the notices doesnt mean a company is definitely going to lay off the recipients.

The conditional WARN notices were sent to alert employees that a sale or wind down of the company is possible in the future. There are no immediate actions being taken, spokeswoman Anita-Marie Laurie said Monday in an emailed statement. Our goal is to emerge from bankruptcy as a growing company with a strong futureone that continues to provide good jobs with competitive wages and benefits.

Hostesss future remains uncertain, largely dependent upon the outcome of negotiations with its two big unions over the fate of their labor agreements as well as upon its search for new capital. Investors are to submit second-round bids for the business this week, Hostess attorney Corinne Ball told the bankruptcy court last month.

Another question mark comes in the form of a threat by the Teamsters, Hostesss biggest union, to strike if the company wins court approval to reject their labor contracts. The Teamsters members drive the trucks that deliver the companys baked goods to store shelves. The union and Hostesss chief executive agree that a Teamsters strike would shut down the company.

The Teamsters on Friday told its local unions that it remains ready, willing and able to negotiate consensual labor changes but vowed not to let the company force a poorly defined or inequitable turnaround plan on its employees that, despite our concessions, is destined to put Hostess out of business once and for all.

A ruling on whether Hostess can reject its labor agreements with the Teamsters hasnt come down yet. However, a bankruptcy judge on Friday authorized the company to reject 35 such agreements with its second-largest union, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union. Both Hostess and BCTGM President Frank Hurt said the company wont necessarily reject the agreements now but will instead continue trying to reach a consensus.

It has the cream filling. The frosting is not gooey. They really taste good refrigerated. I’ve been known to finish off a box with accompanying milk in one day. Great stress reliever. I rationed that I received my daily dose of iron.

I can’t believe the prices on snack cakes in stores today; like candy bars, I simply refuse to buy them at those prices (as I get older I crave them less and less, like fast food). I don’t know what impact unions have on those prices, but I’m sure some of it is the underlying commmodities used as ingredients and a big part of it is the unreported inflation driving everything up.

I heard a deli owner complaining about them, as they sit on his shelves taking up space and don’t move until their expiration nears and a bright orange discount sticker is placed on them. I loved this stuff when I was younger, and could buy it with my paper-route money; I couldn’t imagine many 12 year-olds have the kind of money to buy them now.

Our children will definitely not have the standard of living we had, while we will never have the standard of living our parents had.

Our parents use to give us a dollar when we went to school, even though we had free lunches. We got into the habits of buying a BOX of Little Debbie brownies (it was about 79 or 99 cents or something like that) and a bunch of cans of generic soda (they were like 10 cents a can).

We’d walk across the street and feed the empty cans into the automated canbank and take the change back to the store for more soda.

lol.

We didn’t watch TV and play video games all day back then either, so we weren’t too unhealthy.

26
posted on 05/07/2012 5:52:34 PM PDT
by GeronL
(The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)

It appears to be a privately owned company. Merita priced themselves out off the popular bread shelf a while ago in my local area. Their junk food snack cake brands are much higher than generics, and not enough better than the other brands to justify the price.(IMO)

Sad to see them decline, but their products got progressively smaller and more expensive, starting several years ago.

With any luck, they can retain their patented brands, and start again, if they care to move to right to work states.

The downward “progress” may have been a bi-product of the union label!

I think a lot of us are going to be getting used to generic soda again, and Little Debbies (as opposed to Hostess) and Utz chips (as opposed to Wise or Lays).

The soda itself is actually falling in price, because I think many Americans realize it is nasty (I still love it; it is liquid crack). I see a lot of 4/$5 deals in supermarkets (basically about $.85 per litre) - cheaper than some spring water. I’m sure they’re taking a beating by being tossed from many schools as well.

If you mean the “lightly salted” you’re right; you taste the potato instead of the salt. I prefer them to any other type (unless I have a sour cream & onion craving - happens about once per 3 months). For a short time we had some kind of thicker potato chips around about a year ago; they were good, but disappeared pretty quickly - maybe they weren’t selling well.

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